Sunday, July 20, 2014

God has not ceased to be a God of Miracles" 11 25 13

November 25 13

My Family!

"...God has not ceased to be a God of
Miracles." (Mormon 9:15). Family, I do not have a big enough
vocabulary to describe my happiness. It just keeps getting better.
I think that's a pretty good summary of how I feel. I'd leave it at
that, but I guess I'll talk about the week a little bit. With a new companion,
baptisms in a river, and more baptisms to come, I've almost got tears of joy on
my face just thinking about how I'm going to word all this...

My companion first - Elder Todd, from Anchorage,
Alaska. 1st cool thing is that his last name is Todd so when you combine
us, we're Todd Brown. Shout out to my dad, Todd Brown! What's more,
his dad's name is Shane, so when you combine us, it can also be,
Shane Todd. Shout out to his dad, Shane Todd! Elder Todd and
I have been having a great time together. In honor of his
life in Alaska, we've been drinking real Swiss Miss How Chocolate
since because of the constant rain, it's actually been almost
chilly out for my first time here. He's also just as fired up as me about
the whole miracles deal. on Friday, we we hopped around the three
districts in our zone to inspire (we hope - we had a cool message we shared at
each) every one about seeing miracles this transfer. We've had a
lot so far:

The 1st miracle I won't tell you about, the 2nd
is personal, and there are countless, but what I'll share with you is Saturday!
Remember that less-active family who lives super far away and the dad
walked 1 1/2 hours to church with a bad hernia and the mom was an active
minister in another religion before she came back to church? now they've
made this miraculous come-back and Mom is sharing the Gospel with all 14 of
here nonmember siblings, etc. Well, as a mile stone of their coming back
to the Church, their two kids (9,11) were finally baptized! 2 1/2 months
ago, before I visited them for the first time, I felt like it wasn't a good use
of time to go way out there... But we were prompted, and now look at the fruits
of our labor! I've never felt more blessed/ guided in my life. We
had the baptism/service at a river nearby. It started to rain right when
we got there so we just sang one verse of a hymn, had the opening prayer, did
the baptisms then ran back to a member's house for the talks and stuff.
Even standing in a river (which felt great to "fall" into by
the way!!), I could feel the Spirit.

At church, I got to do one of the confirmations
- amazing opportunity. Then we sat in the youth class which talked about
goals. Remember that awesome investigator family we found a few months ago? And
the Dad had the spiritual experience at that one baptism? Well in the
youth class, the daughter was asked what her goal before the end of 2013 is.
She replied, "It's my goal to be baptized." And it just
got better. I couldn't explain it all or give you every detail, but know
it's a miraculous time to be a missionary. It probably always is, but
even more-so once we consciously recognize it, and strive for more.

Maybe I'd be wrong in saying I'm the happiest
person in the world... But it sure feels like it! (: The beauty is, we
call all be this happy, and it just keeps getting batter. I
encourage you to forget yourself and be active in missionary work!